One of the well known and accepted methods of forming gasket elements has been by blanking or stamping the elements from flat sheets of material and then forming the stamped blanks to the desired shapes. Manifestly, in forming annular gasket elements, such operations have resulted in considerable material loss and scrap.
It will be clearly apparent that when gasket elements are formed of expensive materials, for example stainless steel, the waste of the metal is very expensive and adds considerably to the cost of the finished product.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to produce a gasket element by a method which is considerably more economical than the known methods.
Another object of the invention is to produce a gasket element from commercially available tubular stock whereby the waste through material loss and scrap is substantially reduced.
Still another object of the invention is to produce a gasket element by a method employing a minimum number of manipulative steps.